Mami Tomoe
Skills A magical girl is someone who made a contract with an incubator, signing her life away to fight Witches in exchange for a single wish. To facilitate this, they receive an alternate form with magical powers and superhuman ability. Normally, Mami is simply an athletic, determined teenage girl. But, when she transforms into her magical girl self - visually marked only by an elaborate costume change - she can use these gifts. As a magical girl, Mami is stronger, faster, and sturdier than usual. She can survive impossibly large jumps, leap onto rooftops, and run up and down clotheslines effortlessly. She can carry and use weapons twice her size without feeling strain. Flintlock muskets are Mami's weapon of choice. She can summon dozens of magical guns, as well as several at once, but each holds only a single bullet. Fortunately, her practiced agility allows her to pull of elaborate maneuvers to juggle and use multiple guns at once. She's a quick draw and an excellent shot. She can magically fire her guns without touching the trigger; her larger attacks function by firing off groups of floating rifles at once for wide-ranged, explosive firepower. Additionally, her guns can emulate ammunition from other firearms, such as shotguns. Her signature finish, Tiro Finale, summons a pistol roughly twice Mami's size, which fires a slow yet large and highly destructive shot. Mami also has the power to summon and control magic ribbons, useful for both offensive and defensive manuevers. Though they look dainty, their toughness is on par with metal chains. She manipulates their movements and patterns psychically. They can serve as nets to break a fall, braid themselves into a slope to scale high areas, or even shoot out at a target from all directions to coil around and restrain them. If needed, Mami can make them razor-sharp. Technically speaking, manipulating ribbons is Mami's only special power. Her muskets and bullets are made of ribbons. Given enough time to practice, she can learn to make just about anything from her ribbons and magic, so long as it existed in the eighteenth century or prior. (She discovered this limitation when she tried to create modern rifles. No dice.) She's already learned how to make a cup of tea out of ribbons, which she sips from after a fight. A magical girl's power derives from a tiny trinket called a soul gem, worn on their person at all times. Unbeknownst to Mami, the soul gem is far more sinister than it seems; when a magical girl forms a contract, her soul transferred to her gem, and her former body becomes a lifelike, yet empty, shell. Because Mami does not inhabit her body, she has extreme pain tolerance, allowing her to weather wounds that would incapacitate a normal human as if they were bruises. If something destroys or damages her body to the point of "death," she will continue to live dormant inside the gem until someone with the power/know-how either repairs her shell or transfers her to a new one. If a magical girl's soul gem gets broken, she will immediately die. Likewise, if it is taken over 100 meters away from her body, she will be unable to control it. She will go dormant, and her body will appear dead. Every time Mami uses her powers, her soul gem clouds with grief and despair. Should it turn completely clouded, these feelings will consume her, turning her into a mindlessly evil witch. This terrible truth is yet another secret Mami is not privy to. The only way to cleanse the gem is using grief seeds, the eggs gained upon killing a Witch. The soul gem's benefits and drawbacks persist regardless of her current form. To keep her fear and doubt at bay, Mami emulates the fictional magical girls she's seen on tv when she fights. This gives her a flashy, yet efficient and graceful, fighting style, as if performing for an imaginary audience. However, it functions as well as it does because Mami can detach herself. In emotional moments - even happy ones - Mami's mask slips, and as a result she becomes more careless and aggressive. To be at her full potential, Mami needs to be alone, lest the thrill of having allies and desire to impress them hurts her performance. Off the battlefield, Mami's skillset revolves around the maturity her circumstances forced upon her. She's taken care of herself for years, and that's made her strong. Additionally, she's proven adept at juggling a double lifestyle, keeping her grades up even while she fights Witches afterschool. (Most other magical girls at her school experienced a steep plummet in their grades after contracting.) However, she isn't as emotionally together as she looks. When she breaks, she breaks hard; in earlier timelines, when disaster strikes, Mami is almost always the first to end up dead or insane. Personality Being a magical girl isn't as glamorous as it might sound. For Mami, it means throwing herself into danger on a regular basis, without anyone around to comfort her or care for her. She's always been scared to fight and plagued with insecurities. Rather than show her weakness, she models her public demeanor and image after the onee-sama archetype so typical in the magical girl shows she watched as a little girl. She hides her fear and sadness behind a mask of unflappable calm, pretending to be the fearless heroine she wishes she was. She endeavors to be someone others can look up to; a cool, mature big sister figure for those in need. Mami is used to living on her own and fending entirely for herself. As such, she's grown-up for her age. She tends to look at things in a more rational and long-term manner than her schoolmates do. She's blunt in reminding others of the logical, less-than-ideal drawbacks real life brings with it. While she's idealistic in her desire to help others, she's less enchanted by other matters, as she's seen first-hand how harsh the world can be. Mami is empathetic and kind, placing a high value on the safety and happiness of innocents. She puts protecting bystanders on a higher priority level than defeating evil, willing to let her enemy escape if it's necessary to keep others safe. She's excellent at comforting others and giving them a shoulder to cry on or an ear to talk to. Mami stands her ground around her enemies and rivals. Despite her kindness, she's not afraid to make threats or push buttons when it's necessary. Even in tense conflicts, Mami maintains her gentle, graceful demeanor: she's the kind of person who'll smile sweetly as she promises violence. Though she prefers cooperation and co-existence, she knows its not always obtainable. Mami longs to trust and be trusted, to experience the sense of closeness and belonging she's been denied for so long. But, she's closed off emotionally, hiding her negative feelings behind her noble mask. Given the chance, Mami would jump at the opportunity to truly fight alongside someone else who understands her. She's desperate for friendship; nothing could make her happier. As a side note, Mami has upper-class sensibilities due to her upbringing. She likes tea and fancy deserts, and keeps both her living space and herself swank and stylish. Appearance Mami is a Japanese teenager with a slight build, who stands at 5'2. She has a kind visage; her large copper-gold eyes, bright and lively, give off a soft gaze. Left loose, her blonde hair falls to her shoulders. However, she almost wears it up in twin pigtails, curled in elegant spirals reminiscent of ribbons. Cute hair barettes usually hold them in place. Though small, her frame would fit well on someone taller, marked by long legs and large breasts. On her right hand, the middle nail has a gold gem on it shaped like a rounded cross. This mark proves she's made a contract. Elegance and grace characterize Mami's mannerisms and expressions. Her usual smile is slight, gentle, and unassuming; her face rarely grows intense, and almost has a passive quality to it. She carriest herself with feminine maturity, personifying ladylike charm whether she's sipping tea as a civillian or fighting as a magical girl. Mami's fashion sense is cute yet practical - though she dresses sensibly, she appreciates the little girly touch adornments like ribbons and hair decorations offer. She prefers skirts to pants, because she can twirl in them. In her magical girl form, she always has the same outfit - a white shirt with puffy sleeves, a brown skirt, and a dark-brown lace corset. white fingerless gloves run from her upper arm to her hands, and her brown boots partially cover striped thigh-high socks. She wears a beret on her head. In her civilian form, Mami wears her soul gem as a ring; in her magical girl form, she wears it as a flower-shaped pin in her hair. Relationships History Born in Mitakihara, Japan, Mami is the only child of two wealthy, affectionate parents who always doted on her and put her on a pedestal. She was popular and successful at school, with lots of close friends. Around her, things weren't as idyllic. Rumors of unexplained suicides and rising crime rates spread like wildfire. For Mami, who had never known hardship, these events were especially frightening - she had never imagined tragedy could happen that close to home. One afternoon when Mami was twelve, while going on a drive with her parents, they got into a major car wreck. Her parents died, and Mami was fatally injured. As she drew her last breaths, a small, cute creature resembling a mix or a rabbit and a cat appeared above the wreckage, smiling down at her. He asked her what she wished for. Mind consumed by pain and fear, Mami said the first thing that came to mind: "save me!" Her wish saved her. The odd animal - Kyubey - revealed to her that she had just formed a contract to become a magical girl. In exchange for her wish, she now had the responsibility to fight Witches, monsters that spread despair and were the cause of the more frequent suicides and crime. Though Mami was scared, she had no choice..and living dangerously was better than not living at all. Even alone, Mami could live comfortably, her parents' large fortune and insurance money enabling her to live a lavish lifestyle. Since that day, however, her life has been empty. Now able to think logically, Mami could see how selfish and inadequate her wish was; she could have asked to save her parents too. That, mixed with the unwanted danger of her new life, turned Mami closed-off and depressed, drifting away from her friends and teachers. The only people she would talk to were her dead parents and Kyubey. Initially, Mami was too scared to act upon her new duty or use her magic. She first used them when stumbling upon a girl trying to commit suicide. Instinctively, Mami summoned a ribbon to save her. Saving someone's life felt good; from there, she was able to slowly gain confidence. She was still afraid - and always would be - but the promise of being able to help others kept her strong. Since she had nothing to live for, she decided being a heroine would be her new purpose in life. A bit later, while fighting a Witch, Mami encountered a small child trapped in the wirth's barrier. Mami fought bravely, but her magic was not strong enough, and she was forced to run away. The child died. Mami's incredible guilt motivated her to become stronger, causing her to dive entirely into studying and training to be stronger. In doing so, she became entirely consumed by the magical girl lifestyle, finally losing all her friends. At fourteen, Mami had her first encounter with another magical girl: Kyouko Sakura, from the neighboring town of Kasamino. She ran into Kyouko fighting a Witch at the nick of time and saved her, then the two defeated it together. The two quickly bonded, and Kyouko became Mami's student. This arrangement lasted for a couple months, until Kyouko lost her family. This tragedy caused Kyouko's outlook to shift away from Mami's. She became more cynical, believing that there was no point on "wasting" magic on small-fry enemies, even if they preyed on humans. This irreconcilable difference caused the two to end their relationship after a heated verbal battle. Once again, Mami was alone. The next year, Kyubey informed Mami of two second-years in her school with high potential to be magical girls: Madoka Kaname and Sayaka Miki. Mami soon met them, saving them from a Witch. She invited them and Kyubey to her apartment afterwards, where they discussed magical girls over tea and cake. Mami offered to let them follow her around on her witch-hunting missions to see what it was like, and they agreed. Excited by the prospect of having allies again, Mami was happy to show them the ropes and help them decide if they wanted to be magical girls. The next day, the three followed the trail of a witch as promised. The first sign they were on the right track same soon: a woman with glazed eyes jumping off a building. Mami quickly took magical girl form to save her. Before she could act, however, black chords emerged from the ground, pulling her into a new world. Pandora History